Any other business
The US Treasury shows London how to cold-shoulder Putin’s cronies
A decade ago I commissioned an article about Vladimir Putin’s business cronies. Among other lines of enquiry, it sought to…
Call this US-China tit-for-tat a trade war?
‘Stocks plunge as China hits US goods with tariffs,’ said a headline after the long weekend, and the FTSE100 duly…
So farewell Toys ‘R’ Us, the predator that became the prey
I remember the arrival of Toys ‘R’ Us in Britain, because as a young banker in 1984 I was tasked…
Sorry fishermen, but we were never going to win back control of our waters
My decision to vote Remain was driven in part by an exercise in which I tried to identify anyone close…
Advice from the Institute of Directors: prepare for the scandal tornado
As ‘business lobby groups’ go, the Institute of Directors has always struck me as worthy but unexciting: a more authentic…
Can Theresa May find time to be her own housing supremo?
Theresa May has belatedly taken the advice I offered her here last May and named a supremo to tackle the…
Running a bank’s tough. That’s no reason to start handing capital back
A mixed bag of annual results from the big banks. RBS, still 73 per cent owned by the taxpayer, recorded…
Investors were right to sell Carillion shares when they spotted trouble ahead
The fallout from Carillion’s bankruptcy spreads in slow motion — just as the outsourcing and construction giant’s finances gradually stretched…
Could the Serious Fraud Office put an end to Barclays as we know it?
The Serious Fraud Office has upped the stakes in the case of the controversial $3 billion Qatari financing that saved…
Falling US shares tell us only that investors were too excited in January
If you were the incoming or retiring chairman of the Federal Reserve, you might be quietly pleased to see stock…
The real reason hospitals threw back that Presidents Club cash
I visited St Thomas’ Hospital on Monday, to discuss fundraising for a cardiology research project. On the way in, I…
Forget a Channel bridge and celebrate Crossrail
This column has long been a sucker for a grand projet. ‘Time for a trip to Boris Island,’ I gushed…
Outsourcing is a good thing, regardless of the Carillion crash
Carillion is a disaster on all fronts, but my sympathies go first to the fallen contracting giant’s sub–contractors. Upwards of…
Michael Wolff said the US needed a market-charming president: now it has one
I once commissioned Michael Wolff —currently the world’s most talked-about journalist as the author of the White House exposé Fire…
In defence of that £110 million bonus for the boss of Persimmon builders
New Year’s Eve was certainly a day for celebration in the household of 53-year-old Jeff Fairburn, chief executive of the…
Instead of schmoozing at City parties, this year I’m Sarah the Cook in panto
Last Christmas I offered you a cruel satire about a boardroom big-shot whose career went so awry that he ended…
The skulking assassins of the London Stock Exchange
The revenge tragedy at the London Stock Exchange whose plot I outlined last month has reached its third act, but…
A sensible Budget and stronger banks – what could go wrong?
One week you’re fighting to survive the dance-off amid vicious backstage rivalries, the next you’re scoring a perfect ten from…
Dear Chancellor, we can’t make the bricks to build your homes
The Chancellor sounded purposeful when he declared that he’ll do ‘whatever it takes’ to boost the rate of housebuilding —…
Armageddon is coming – how real-life employers are preparing for life under Corbyn
Numerous readers told me they liked my recent tale — offered as an antidote to ‘media sniping at corporate capitalism’…
Yes, Jay Powell is the compromise candidate for the Federal Reserve – but not a bad one at that
Perhaps we should be relieved that Donald Trump has made a dull appointment to succeed Janet Yellen as chairman of…
The City needs to make new friends but is becoming pals with Putin a step too far?
In connection with the receding possibility of a London Stock Exchange listing for Saudi Aramco, I wrote that the City…
Up the Zambezi: why Rio Tinto’s colossal coal cock-up is going to court
Another week, another blue-chip in the dock. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has brought fraud charges against London-based mining…
Are we really half a trillion poorer? No, but we’re not pulling in investors like we used to
How did we mislay half a trillion pounds? Revised data from the Office for National Statistics has just reduced the…
Bombardier says more about aircraft makers’ dirty tricks than the future of UK-US trade
‘Bombardier exposes post-Brexit realities’ was the FT’s headline after the Trump administration imposed a 300 per cent tariff on sales…
